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Thursday, July 10, 2003
Short Trips: Taste tour blends old pleasures with new
By JEFF LARSEN
SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
For a Short Trips column last summer, I toured a number of Yakima Valley wineries, mainly in the upper part of the valley. The scenery and wine both were exquisite. The story was a natural.
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Since I had only one day to pull it off last year, I decided to winery-hop just like a wine hunter from out of town, unfamiliar with the landscape and location of the wineries.
I started early, but as it turned out, I had a chance to visit only a fraction of the wineries in that part of the valley. Most of the wineries didn't open until late morning and closed early, so the wine-tasting window was short. Some tasting rooms were open only on weekends. Currently there are more than 30 wineries in what's officially labeled the Columbia Valley wine region.
Back then, I extracted most of the Yakima Valley winery information I needed from Internet sources before I drove over from Seattle. I was able to find maps, historical and other pertinent information from a variety of different sites.
Since that August trip, however, the Yakima Valley Visitors and Convention Bureau has dramatically stepped up its efforts to promote what it considers to be the finest wine country in the nation. The centerpiece for its latest promotional push is a jazzy new visitors information center adjacent to Interstate 82 in the north end of Yakima as you enter the valley.
Kathy Coffey, president of the visitors and convention bureau, says wine and tourism go together just like wine and cheese, and the two need to move forward together. Patterned after a similar center that Coffey and some other Yakima promoters toured four years ago in Sonoma, Calif., the facility will serve as the leading edge for a strategy to promote all facets of valley life, including wine production.
Coffey said the center will be teamed with similar efforts by other cities in the valley, including Prosser, about 40 miles south of Yakima, where the valley's grape-growing and wine effort really began in earnest. The Yakima center has been labeled "the gateway to Washington wine country" since it's located farthest north in the valley on I-82 and the most convenient area close to the highway for southbound travelers to stop and plan their winery-hopping strategy.
The visitors and convention people are nagging the state Department of Transportation to get busy and hang agreed-upon visitor center direction signs at strategic locations on I-82. From southbound I-82, take exit 33A (Fair Avenue). The center is adjacent to the park and ride lot.
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 | Jeff Larsen / Special to the P-I | |
| Kathy Coffey, president and CEO of the Yakima Valley Visitors and Convention Bureau, shows off the organization’s new visitor information center in Yakima. | ||
Because I spent most of my time in the upper valley last year, I wanted to visit wineries farther south this time, especially in the winery-rich Red Mountain area of the Yakima Valley I've heard so much about. I also decided to make the new visitor center my main source of information for the visit -- just to see how well it works.
Travel counselor Dale Spurlock graciously pointed out the best route to get to the region and told me a little bit about why Red Mountain is such a prolific wine-growing region in the valley. He also mentioned that this year the oldest Washington state appellation, Yakima Valley, celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Besides personalized service, the center features a state-of-the-art interactive kiosk, hands-on computers and a 10-minute video on a large screen. Visitors can even check their e-mail at the center.
Red Mountain is in the Yakima Valley near Benton City and Prosser and is authorized as an official American Viticultural Appellation (AVA). This whole appellation designation thing can get really confusing, especially since Red Mountain and the Yakima Valley are appellations that reside in the larger Columbia Valley wine region appellation. In turn, the Red Mountain appellation is in the southeast corner of the Yakima Valley appellation.
It's kind of like nesting Tupperware -- all the appellations are collected together in one bigger appellation. Sometimes it's hard to keep track without an appellation program.
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| Jeff Larsen / Special to the P-I | |
| A view of Hedges Cellars in front of Red Mountain in the Yakima Valley. | ||
Like all appellations, the Columbia Valley designation had to be federally authorized by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It was approved in 1984 and covers virtually one-third of Washington, including the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla. It even dips into Canada and Oregon.
Some experts have predicted that in time the smaller, adjoining Yakima Valley and Red Mountain appellations could become the next Napa Valley if the economy of the wine industry holds up.
The government's requirement for a geographical area to officially be designated an appellation is that 75 percent of the wine from that area must be derived from "fruit or agricultural products" grown within the prescribed boundaries of the appellation.
The federal government approved the relatively small Red Mountain appellation just two years ago, which makes it the newest in the state. Six hundred of the 3,600 total acres have been planted in vineyards over the past 20 years. Grapes tend to grow especially well there because of the combination of warm days and cool nights, good air circulation, gravelly soil with a high calcium carbonate content and high pH (high alkalinity), and sloping land.
A trip to any part of the Yakima Valley wine country would not be complete without indulging in a tasty peach sundae at Donald Fruit and Mercantile (one large scoop of vanilla, $2.75; two large scoops, $3.75).
Just off Exit 44 near Wapato, south of Yakima on the way to Red Mountain on I-82, my old friend Jim Russi has added a wine-tasting bar this year for his company's new winery, called Piety Flats after a farming area that's now a part of valley folklore. He offers some tasty wine varieties along with a great assortment of locally grown fruit.
Keith Pilgrim, owner and winemaker of Red Mountain's Terra Blanca winery, can talk wine faster than I can swing a golf club. The man knows his grapes, and he should, since his winery is one of the biggest in the Red Mountain appellation.
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| Jeff Larsen / Special to the P-I | |
| Keith Pilgrim appears small among dimly -lit rows of enormous French wine barrels in a 200-foot-long concrete "cave." A cave can hold up to a thousand barrels. | ||
Unique to Red Mountain -- and Washington state for that matter -- Pilgrim built two, 200-foot-long concrete underground caves to store and age his wine in expensive, French oak barrels. The caves can hold a maximum of a thousand 58-gallon barrels. Taller and wider caves, built as part of the current overall winery facility improvement project on the 300-acre spread, are almost ready to receive their first barrels.
Armed with a glass siphon and three glasses, Pilgrim hosted an impromptu barrel tasting for me and Jim Russi (who tagged along) in one of the caves to showcase some of his upcoming wines. Russi gushed over Pilgrim's 2002 Merlot, while I thought the same vintage Chardonnay was the best in the cave.
Back in the more traditional tasting room, manager Kathleen Dykes dispensed some of the winery's most recent successes, including an excellent 2000 Syrah and Chardonnay, to a motorcycle group from Spokane on a vacation jaunt through the Yakima Valley wine country.
For sheer tasting-room volume, Red Mountain's Kiona Vineyards and Winery (Kiona is the native Yakama word for brown hills) gets the blue ribbon. Tasting room operator Tim Dauncey at times looked like a circus juggler as he dispensed some of the dozen different wines he had lined up on the counter.
Assistant winemaker, Glen Fukuyama, told me Kiona's 18 different wines might be a bit "over the top" but he insisted that the winery continually strives to be innovative and even to experiment a little at times to make interesting, flavorful wines. The winery is noted for its sangiovese (like an Italian Chianti) and the robust red table wine called Lemberger.
It was midweek, so Chris Hedges had his construction hat on when we arrived at Hedges Cellars' lavish chateaulike venue tucked into the hills above Benton City in the Red Mountain appellation.
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| Jeff Larsen / Special to the P-I | |
| Subtle lighting sets the tone of the wine library at Hedges Cellars tasting facility on Red Mountain near Benton City. | ||
The plush facility, which includes a tasting room, wine library and special occasion areas, is only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday for tasting and other times by appointment. But Chris, whose official title is retail manager, though he also handles many of the winery construction projects, was kind enough to give us a quick tour of the facility and sample the winery's Fumé Chardonnay that got worldwide recognition last year.
According to Wine Enthusiast magazine, in 2002 the wine was one of the top 10 white wine values in the world, and among the top 10, it was the lowest priced. Not bad for one of eight wineries in the smallest wine appellation in Washington.
Headquartered in Issaquah, Hedges Cellars actually has an 80-person membership club at its Red Mountain venue, with a waiting list. It's so popular that, to even stay on the waiting list, prospective members need to buy half the amount of wine a full-fledged member is required to buy under his or her membership agreement.
I asked Chris how much wine prospective members needed to buy if they wanted to get on the waiting list for the official waiting list. He laughed. The winery's Issaquah headquarters also includes a tasting room, a barrel room, kitchen and private dining area.
There really isn't a bad time during the summer to visit the Yakima Valley wine country. The weather is usually more predictable than the hours that tasting rooms are open. Weekends are best. But early fall is better since it's both apple and grape harvest time and the weather still is sunnier that time of year than the clearest weather in Western Washington.
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What could be more enjoyable in the sun than munching on a freshly picked, crisp golden delicious apple in one hand and sipping a cool glass of Chardonnay in the other while it rains in Seattle? Ahhhhhh.
IF YOU GO
P-I photographer Jeff Larsen can be reached via e-mail at shorttrips@jefflarsen.com.
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